Russia Struggles to Build Influence in South Africa

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published on 16 December 2019 a study titled "Nuclear Enrichment: Russia's Ill-fated Influence Campaign in South Africa" by Andrew S. Weiss, Carnegie Endowment, and Eugene Rumer, Carnegie Endowment and former US intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia.

The authors argue that Russia today offers little in the way of practical assistance for helping South Africa, which has less than one percent of its trade with Russia. Moscow's close relations with former South African President Jacob Zuma, a Soviet-trained intelligence operative, resulted in an ill-fated nuclear power deal and was based on corruption. This relationship has been largely reversed by South Africa's strong civil society and system of checks and balances.